A Wytch's Book Review Blog

Circle of Influence (Zoe Chambers Mysteries #1) by Annette Dashofy

Zoe Chambers, paramedic and deputy coroner in rural Pennsylvania’s tight-knit Vance Township, has been privy to a number of local secrets over the years, some of them her own. But secrets become explosive when a dead body is found in the Township Board President’s abandoned car. As a January blizzard rages, Zoe and Police Chief Pete Adams launch a desperate search for the killer, even if it means uncovering secrets that could not only destroy Zoe and Pete, but also those closest to them.

An excellent start to a series! 5 stars (and counting), small town politics turns into small town murder and mayhem with Zoe Chambers and Police Chief Pete Adams trying to figure out who would want to kill Ted and leave his body in someone elses car.  Secrets are going to come out and emotions will run high before Pete and Zoe track down the killer.

Murder in the Museum (Inspector Shelley #6) by John Rowland

When Professor Julius Arnell breathes his last in the hushed atmosphere of the British Museum Reading Room, it looks like death from natural causes. Who, after all, would have cause to murder a retired academic whose life was devoted to Elizabethan literature? Inspector Shelley's suspicions are aroused when he finds a packet of poisoned sugared almonds in the dead man's pocket; and a motive becomes clearer when he discovers Arnell's connection to a Texan oil millionaire. Soon another man plunges hundreds of feet into a reservoir on a Yorkshire moor. What can be the connection between two deaths so different, and so widely separated? The mild-mannered museum visitor Henry Fairhurst adds his detective talents to Inspector Shelley's own, and together they set about solving one of the most baffling cases Shelley has ever encountered.

Hmm this isn't (in my view) the best of the British Library Crime Classics/Golden Age, granted it was short and therefore a quick read but it was jumping between characters too much and nothing seems to happen for ages and then WHAM we know what happened, quick jump in the train and get the criminal! I suspect this will be the only Rowland I will read.

Be Our Ghost: A Merry Ghost Inn Mystery (Merry Ghost Inn #3) by Kate Kingsbury

If bed-and-breakfast owners Melanie and Liza, along with their laughing ghost tenant, can’t find a real estate developer’s killer, their own estate will end up with their next of kin.

The Merry Ghost Inn is well and truly open for business. Melanie West and her grandmother, Liza, are rapidly getting the hang of running their charming bed-and-breakfast inn on the rocky Oregon coast. Not that business goes without a hitch—when your hostelry boasts its own laughing resident ghost, you’d better be expect the out-of-the-ordinary. But Melanie and Liza take it all in stride…until a hotshot real estate developer arrives in Sully’s Landing, touting his plans to build a tacky amusement arcade smack dab in the middle of the tasteful cliff-side town.

No one in Sully’s Landing can stand the gaudy developer, but it’s still a shock when he ends up murdered. It’s even more shocking when Liza’s friend, Doug, emerges as the chief suspect. Melanie and Liza put on their sleuthing caps yet again and set out to clear Doug’s name. But the ante is upped when Max, Melanie’s beloved sheepdog/wolfhound mix, disappears.

When Max reappears just as mysteriously as he vanished, with a threatening note attached to his collar, Melanie and Liza know the killer is on to them. They nearly check into accommodations six feet under when, en route to the crime scene, their brakes give out and they narrowly miss plunging over the cliffs to the beach below. Meanwhile, the merry ghost who haunts the inn tries to help by dropping clues for Melanie to find, but her mind is otherwise preoccupied when the killer kidnaps Liza and holds her prisoner.

Now, it’s up to Melanie to piece together the ghost’s clues, save her mother, exonerate her friend, keep her guests happy, and make sure Max gets his walkies in Kate Kingsbury’s third mirthful Merry Ghost Inn mystery, Be Our Ghost.

Another brilliant visit to The Merry Ghost Inn, and it is wonderful to catch up with Liza, Mel, Cindi and of course Max (oh and Orville/Arthur the aforementioned Merry Ghost!) Even though this is set in the run up to Summer it still makes a perfect Halloween read!

Sully's Landing seems the perfect seaside town, shops to wander in, the quirky Hardware Store with the bar/eaterie in it, the B & B and above all the peace and quiet makes it the ideal place to unwind, but changes could be afoot, a Developer wants to take over a few of the stores in the centre of the town and change them into an arcade with gambling machines, fast food places and everything tacky, before he can he needs to get a majority vote from the Town Council on changing the rules for the town and he seems to think that won't be a problem, but Doug (the Hardware owner) and a couple of others are hoping to block it.  The plans are blocked well and truly though a few days later when the Developer is killed and Doug is the prime suspect for the murder (although the others at the meeting are also in the frame).  With Liza determined to prove Doug's innocence, Mel and Liza start to investigate, only to discover they may be getting too close for comfort to the killer when Max (their rescue dog) is kidnapped, and then the brakes on their car are cut.

Now they really need to put their virtual deerstalkers on before they join Orville in the afterlife.

A Gentleman's Murder by Christopher Huang

The year is 1924, and Lieutenant Eric Peterkin, formerly of the Royal Fusiliers, is a new member of the Britannia―London’s most prestigious club. It's a family tradition, but an honor he's not sure he quite deserves. So, when a gentleman's wager ends with one man dead in the vault under the club, Eric is only too ready to tackle the mystery head on.

Eric’s quest to resolve the murder quickly becomes an investigation of a mysterious wartime disappearance. It draws him far from the marbled halls of the Brittania, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital to the heroin dens of Limehouse. Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard.

Threatened with expulsion and dogged by the racist shadows of the Great War, Eric presses on nonetheless. But can he snare the killer before his own membership becomes a thing of yesterday?

Eric Peterkin is the latest Peterkin to be a member of the Britannia Club, a rather exclusive club for those involved in the forces.  When a new member joins, and is unwisely dragged into a bet with another member (Wolfe), Peterkin agrees to be the referee, the bet is that Wolfe can break into the vault and then Benson's box within the vault and bring an item to show he has done so, with the bet laid Benson shows Peterkin what is in the box so he can clarify as to whether Wolfe has succeeded or not.

It all seems to be great fun until Benson doesn't arrive at the time to bet has to be completed by, and then Cully (one of the staff and known to all as Old Faithful) and Peterkin discover his very dead body in the vault.  With the members of the Britannia closing ranks, the police officer in charge seen by Peterkin to have pocketed evidence and no one being prepared to stand up for Benson, Peterkin takes it upon himself to find out the truth, leading to danger and more death, and possibly either Peterkin being either blackballed from the club, or possibly killed!

A slow and steady read with the occasional frantic interlude, a very good imitation of the authors of the Golden Age of Crime - Huang can set his standard up among them for me!